Happy New Year

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Happy Holidays!

With 2009's final blast hitting the country, the Chasing4Life team will be busy navigating roads and reporting conditions throughout the holiday. We want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and the very happiest of holidays. If you are in the path of all this weather, please do not let our efforts this year go to waste...stay prepared, stay alert and stay safe.

We want to thank all of you that supported us this year and we are looking forward to what looks to be an AMAZING new year.

As you spend some time with your families this next week, stay tuned to our Twitter and keep us in your prayers.

Happy Holidays!

Time's runnin out!

Aside from transmission work now needed on one vehicle and the alternator going out on another, it was a pretty good day! The Iowa Library Tour for next year appears to be needing more dates as response is better than hoped for, so we'll be spending some serious time in the fields of dreams.
Colorado is a state we have not spent much time in, and now, with bookings filling up- in Colorado we are excited about the prospect of making new friends to the west!
Other tours coming together nicely include Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Nebraska! Wow, what a busy year ahead!
If you have been THINKING about booking an event, you need to at least email us soon. Tour dates and open slots have filled VERY quickly this week and it is possible that you miss your chance if you wait much longer!

Tragic Loss-Henderson, TN

As we tour, we make friends and those friends quickly become family. This Monday was to be the day that we touched base with our new friends and family in Tennessee to arrange for a return tour. It is tonight that we are truly saddened to find that one of the towns we grew to love has suffered a horrible, tragic loss.
Captain Dennis Cagle, a police officer in Henderson, Tennessee (Chester County) was shot on Thursday and passed away this morning. Alannah and I were shocked to hear of the loss and are truly saddened. Our prayers and thoughts are with the folks in Chester County as they deal with this horrible loss during what should be such a joyous season.

Magnum Boots

At the end of year, Chasing4Life trucks and equipment get new graphics, new looks and new equipment. With each new sponsor, our strength is renewed as we know that another company, another organization, another individual has chosen to see value in our effort. With massive goals ahead of us as a team, it is heartening to know that we have so many supporters behind us.
Today we want to thank Magnum Boots for joining the Chasing4Life team of sponsors.

For over 20 years, Magnum, a division of Hi-Tec Sports USA, Inc., has been the leader in offering unsurpassed comfort, technology, and value in uniform footwear used by law enforcement, military, fire/rescue, and emergency medical agencies around the world. These boots are distributed in over 70 countries!

Over the course of the last several years, the team has been in some pretty serious circumstances and the one piece of equipment that always fails is our boots. An old friend told me you don't always have to leg to stand on as long as you have good boots. Its true. While most people look for footwear with a fashion-sense, our world is a bit different. From tornado aftermath to hurricane recovery, from search & rescue to emergency response, from wildfires to floods to blizzards, we needed the right footwear that could hold up to Chasing4Life standards and needs.

We got 'em.

Watch for Magnum Boots and Hi-Tec Sports to appear on our home page within the week and check out their incredible line of products. We're gonna put these boots to the test, believe me.

For more info on Magnum Boots, CLICK HERE.

Nebraska Winter Storm Pictures

Media: Please credit Chasing4Life

Wednesday December 9, 2007

Wednesday December 9

Today's Storm In Nebraska

WEBSITE MIGRATION

In order to account for a failed website and email migration, we will be moving the Chasing4Life websites to a new server sometime this week. We do not want to lose touch with you. During this migration, you may experience difficulties in emailing our offices and staff or you may receive an error message when accessing our website. We are truly sorry for this inconvenience. This will not be a long-term situation, we promise. Please check back here for an update, or contact us by emailing c4lbackup@gmail.com

This migration is being made due to instability in both our emailing system and our websites caused by a migration attempted by our hosting company APlus.net
Our staff has spent countless hours over the last three days dealing with poor customer care, poor technical support, and a lack of response from their legal department. If you have received emails that were not intended for you from a chasing4life address, we apologize. The company has failed to address the problems being experienced by many of their customers and we fell victim to this poor follow-up.

In order to protect yourself from cyber-disasters, make sure you back up your systems, research companies you trust with proprietary information, and stay informed as to that compan's changes in policies, activities, partnerships and mergers. You could save yourself in the long run.

PLEASE NOTE: The problems we experienced were not the result of any activity on the part of QGraphX or MyTedWebs. These are both reputable companies that we have worked with for years and we wholeheartedly endorse them both. This was all due to activities by APlus.net

A SPECIAL THANKS TO QUINCY AT WWW.QGRAPHX.COM FOR HIS QUICK RESPONSE TO THE PROBLEMS WE ENCOUNTERED AND THE PRIORITY PLACED ON EMERGENCY BACK-UPS, REPLACEMENT HOSTING AND RECOVERY OF DATA.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

As we watch the almost tropical severe weather on the East Coast, we cannot ignore the shift in weather throughout the plains. For the next two weeks we will be publishing Winter Weather Lessons on our KRVN Radio Blog. You can access these lessons by clicking on the large graphic below.

You Jane - Me Tarzan

I have long said that the women on our team are stronger than the men. I have found that in a disaster or a stressful incident situation, women tend to stay calm, more in control of their own emotions while the men tend to clench their fists and run first, thinking second.

While I am not sure how scientific my findings have been, it is interesting to find out that a team from Krakow, in Poland, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess brain activity when 40 volunteers of both sexes were shown various images.

In the study, the men showed activity in areas which dealt with what action they should take to avoid or confront danger but the study showed more activity in the emotional side of a woman’s brain.

The researchers, from Jagiellonian University Hospital in Krakow, carried out scans on 21 men and 19 women. Brain activity was monitored while the volunteers were shown images of objects and images from ordinary life designed to evoke different emotional states.

There are normally three different responses to a sudden shock like a disaster situation: flight, fight or freeze. While the study did not mention the “freeze” option, what it showed was interesting and perhaps backs up my theories a bit.

The images were displayed in two runs. For the first run, only negative pictures were shown. For the second run, only positive pictures were shown.

While viewing the negative images, women showed stronger and more extensive activity in the left thalamus. This is an area which relays sensory information to the pain and pleasure centres of the brain.

Men showed more activity in an area of the brain called the left insula, which plays a key role in controlling involuntary functions, including respiration, heart rate and digestion. In essence, activity in this area primes the body to either run from danger, or confront it head on - the so-called "fight or flight response".

Researcher Dr Andrzej Urbanik said: "This might signal that when confronted with dangerous situations, men are more likely than women to take action."

Here is where I wonder about my own theories. While this study may prove that men are more likely to charge into a situation and take action before a woman, is this really a positive? The study itself of course did not attempt to make a determination regarding negative or positive, but I will. Over the course of the last several years, from disaster recovery operations to the disasters themselves, the women we have had on our team have DEFINITELY responded from that thalamus first, but this gave them the edge overall. The process of recognizing first the horror or need or loss seemed to give them an edge in the long run. While I believe that the study was probably accurate, do not misunderstand me; I am not talking about women sitting on the road crying while men are grabbing ropes and shovels. This study referred to and focused on the way the BRAIN worked, not the way the BODY responded.

While Dr. Urbanik believes men are more likely to take action, I disagree. What I believe is that women take action with an added element.

It has been my finding through years of working with female firefighters, disaster responders, nurses, doctors and paramedics that women, while immediately more emotionally attached to the situation, are just as quick to respond physically. In other words, they have a shovel in their hand just as fast.

What I believe this study really proves is that women operate on a different level than men and this makes them a more conscientious responder.

I have seen a gentle power from women in disasters that is rarely found in a man, and while often a man’s brute force is useful, the heart-driven power of a woman lasts much longer in a drawn-out scenario.

This summer, with a team of half women and half men suddenly thrust in a high-pressure response situation, it was the men that folded first, one of them, with years of experience, folded mentally after 5 days while the women on the team continued on. I believe that this stimulated thalamus may be the reason why I have witnessed all I have seen through the years. Women FEEL the need and therefore tend to attach themselves to the end goal of salvation personally.

All in all, I have no basis for drawing my conclusions save experience, but the study was interesting and I believe bolsters my opinion that women make tremendous responders, and that when disaster strikes, it is good to have at least one Jane around to balance out the Tarzan.